EPA cancels harbor meeting, blames federal budget

NEW BEDFORD — The Environmental Protection Agency said uncertainty over the federal budget is to blame for the agency canceling its March 28 public meeting regarding the harbor cleanup.

ARIEL WITTENBERG

NEW BEDFORD — The Environmental Protection Agency said uncertainty over the federal budget is to blame for the agency canceling its March 28 public meeting regarding the harbor cleanup.

Funding already appropriated for the agency runs out on March 27 and Congress is still working to determine funding levels for the rest of the federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, according to EPA spokesman Jim Murphy.

Murphy said agency representatives were going to discuss their summer cleanup plans for the harbor at the meeting but that uncertainty about their annual funding would make such a presentation premature.

"We are in a little bit of limbo right now because we do not know how much money we are going to have to operate the rest of this year," Murphy said. "We are not in a position to make a presentation about the dredging schedule and plans for this year or any of our major activities."

Though the meeting was scheduled to be held one day after Congress would have to extend the federal budget, Murphy said the deadline was too close to call.

"This is frustrating for us, too," he said. "This is something that will significantly impact the money the EPA gets for the rest of the year and it prevents us from talking about our activities."

He added that the budget problems are not limited to EPA Region 1 and that the agency is "committed to doing everything we can to protect our mission-critical activities, such as the New Bedford Harbor."

"Community outreach is part of that," Murphy said.

Karen Vilandry, vice president of Hands Across the River Coalition, said postponing the meeting is "unacceptable."

"We wait for months at a time to have them come here so we can ask them questions and be engaged in the harbor process," she said.

She added that even if the EPA is not able to answer questions about its future dealings on the harbor, the meeting should still be held because "we have questions about old business."

The meeting has not been rescheduled but Murphy said he hopes it could take place in early May.

EPA representatives will be attending a meeting in City Hall held by the Department of Environmental Protection on the same day as the canceled meeting. That DEP meeting is about the state's navigational harbor dredging, but the EPA is on the agenda to update plans for South Terminal and a more general "EPA update."

Murphy said that the DEP's meeting "is different in that it is not really our meeting."